About
Sociology and Anthropology Mission, Vision, Values
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Mission Statement
The mission of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology is to promote intellectual understanding of the human experience, past and present.
- We encourage and reward exceptional teacher-scholars and foster faculty/staff development that supports individual interests and strengths while promoting excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.
- We advance critical thinking to discover, understand, and apply transformative knowledge about sociology & anthropology within the context of a diverse and global society.
- We create and maintain, with our students, an inclusive, challenging, and supportive teaching-learning community, both inside and outside the classroom, in order to promote student success, shared responsibility for learning, academic achievement, and globally engaged citizens.
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Vision Statement
The Department will advance scholarship and critical thought by empowering students, faculty, and staff as engaged citizens to promote social change in a diverse global community.
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Guiding Values
- Scholarship and learning
- Individualized attention
- Diversity and inclusion
- Civic engagement
- Cross-cultural and global perspectives
- Social justice
- Respect and collegiality
Welcome from the Chair
Welcome to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Illinois State University. We welcome you to spend some time browsing around our site to explore the diversity of our programs and the accomplished faculty and staff that work with our students to make it all possible. Our faculty represent a broad array of disciplines and interests that reflect the changing and dynamic nature of our globalized society. This diversity in teaching and research expertise provide both undergraduate and graduate students with an exciting array of opportunities to further explore and enhance their own personal and professional goals. We pride ourselves on this diversity and varied perspectives on the human condition – ranging from social movements, personal relationships, race, class and gender, the environment, and the organization of cultures and societies throughout the world, to the archeology of historic and prehistoric North America. Although we are diverse and broad in our interests, we also share a collective core commitment to engaging each student as an individual, providing personalized instruction and mentoring that helps our students feel very connected and engaged. We bring the best of both worlds to our students – the rich resources and diversity of a leading and accomplished University, with the distinct and singular attention of a program that puts our students at the center of our mission.
We share in the mission of Illinois State University in our commitment to providing all students with a first-class educational experience, both within and outside of the classroom. This experience builds on our obligation to smaller class sizes for our majors, collaborative learning opportunities that actively involve students in both on and off-campus communities, and a curriculum that priorities critical reasoning and analyses skills. Our faculty are nationally and internationally recognized for their research expertise, while at the same time being equally renowned for their dedication to teaching and utilization of student-centered learning approaches. We champion this balance of teaching and research and believe that our students benefit tremendously from the passion and commitment of our diverse faculty and staff.
We invite you to explore your own passions and how our programs may help you achieve your future visions. Please contact us if you would like to visit or further discuss how we may help you to reach those dreams with a degree in Sociology or Anthropology.
Joan Brehm
Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology